Going beyond web stats

We have talked in many of our clinic sessions about the value of studying and using your web stats to improve your site operation. This article discusses a technique for going beyond the activity stats to try to identify what is going on in the minds of the visitors to the site.

The article is a case study of how one firm used a commercial opinion-gathering tool to collect feedback from users. There is a particularly interesting chart included that illustrates where this information gathering fits into the evaluation scheme. The stats reviews that we have discussed account for about half the elements in the evaluation cycle.

MarketingSherpa.com : Practical News & Case Studies on Internet Advertising, Marketing & PR"Avaya execs wanted to know much more than how many visitors a page received. Marketers had questions like:
o How satisfied are visitors with my site section?
o What problems or frustrations do they encounter there?
o Is the content effective -- is it meeting visitor's expectations?
o How could I tweak the site to encourage visitor loyalty?
o Are there design changes we could make to improve marketing campaign results?"